Animal Rights
View allAll Photos Tagged discrimination
Spotted Flycatcher - Muscicapa striata
This is an undistinguished looking bird with long wings and tail. The adults have grey-brown upperparts and whitish underparts, with a streaked crown and breast, giving rise to the bird's common name. The legs are short and black, and the bill is black and has the broad but pointed shape typical of aerial insectivores. Juveniles are browner than adults and have spots on the upperparts.
Spotted flycatchers hunt from conspicuous perches, making sallies after passing flying insects, and often returning to the same perch. Their upright posture is characteristic.
They are birds of deciduous woodlands, parks and gardens, with a preference for open areas amongst trees. They build an open nest in a suitable recess, often against a wall, and will readily adapt to an open-fronted nest box. 4-6 eggs are laid.
Most European birds cannot discriminate between their own eggs and those of other species. The exception to this are the hosts of the common cuckoo, which have had to evolve this skill as a protection against that nest parasite. The spotted flycatcher shows excellent egg recognition, and it is likely that it was once a host of the cuckoo, but became so good at recognising the intruder's eggs that it ceased to be victimised. A contrast to this is the dunnock, which appears to be a recent cuckoo host, since it does not show any egg discrimination.
Spotted Flycatcher - Muscicapa striata
This is an undistinguished looking bird with long wings and tail. The adults have grey-brown upperparts and whitish underparts, with a streaked crown and breast, giving rise to the bird's common name. The legs are short and black, and the bill is black and has the broad but pointed shape typical of aerial insectivores. Juveniles are browner than adults and have spots on the upperparts.
Spotted flycatchers hunt from conspicuous perches, making sallies after passing flying insects, and often returning to the same perch. Their upright posture is characteristic.
They are birds of deciduous woodlands, parks and gardens, with a preference for open areas amongst trees. They build an open nest in a suitable recess, often against a wall, and will readily adapt to an open-fronted nest box. 4-6 eggs are laid.
Most European birds cannot discriminate between their own eggs and those of other species. The exception to this are the hosts of the common cuckoo, which have had to evolve this skill as a protection against that nest parasite. The spotted flycatcher shows excellent egg recognition, and it is likely that it was once a host of the cuckoo, but became so good at recognising the intruder's eggs that it ceased to be victimised. A contrast to this is the dunnock, which appears to be a recent cuckoo host, since it does not show any egg discrimination.
Laughter is both an opposite and an equal
to falling
For both moments of humanity
You forget about your physical Pain
Poverty
Genocide
Discrimination
and are simply complex molecules moving
Dancing frantically
Trying like mad to keep you alive.
**All photos are copyrighted**
Wishing you strength and healing!
Thank you for your kind visit. Have a wonderful and beautiful day! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
There must never be anything so horrible in human history!!!
As long as I live I will fight against racism, all kinds of discrimination and persecution.
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∎ Created with Midjourney
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If we hate someone, we hate something in his image, which sits in ourselves. What is not in ourselves, this excited us not.
Wenn wir einen Menschen hassen, so hassen wir in seinem Bild etwas, was in uns selber sitzt. Was nicht in uns selber ist, das regt uns nicht auf.
Hermann Hesse, Demian, The Collected Works Volume 5
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"When the war was over, the soldier came home. But he had no bread. Then he saw a man who had bread. He beat him dead / / You can not kill somebody, said the judge. / / Why not? asked the soldier."
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"All people have a sewing machine, a radio, a refrigerator and a telephone. What do we do now? Asked the factory owners . / / bombs , said the inventor . / / war , said the General . / / If there is no other way, said the factory owners. "
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"Oh, we were looking for you, God , in every ruin, every shell-hole, every night . We have called you God, we have yelled out for you, cried, cursed! Where were you then, dear God?"
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" Responsibility is not just a word , a chemical formula, is white human flesh transformed in the dark earth. We can not let people die for an empty word. Somewhere we must have our responsibility. The dead - not answer. God - not answer. But the survivors ask.
"When they tell tomorrow command , you should not water pipes and no pots to make more - but steel helmets and machine guns , then there is only one choice: Say NO! ".
Wolfgang Borchert, „Lesebuchgeschichten“, in: „Draußen vor der Tür“, (Outside the door) , ISBN 3-499-10170-X, 1956,
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The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm distinguishes between two types of hate:
Reactive Hate
It is always the result of a deep injury or a painful situation, it is powerless against, because they can not change on their own. Erich Fromm writes: "In reactive hate I mean a response that due to an attack on my life, my safety, my ideals, or to another person, whom I love and with whom I am identified.
Reactive hatred always presupposes that someone has a positive outlook on life to other people and ideals. Who is strong life-affirming, will react accordingly if his life is threatened."
Source: Wikipedia, German, Articles: Hate
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FIRST THEY CAME – BY PASTOR MARTIN NIEMÖLLER
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Source: www.hmd.org.uk
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|| Bread || Wolfgang Borchert || Wolfgang Borchert - Quotes || Hate || Discrimination || Rubble literature || Martin Niemöller ||
"If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end."
~Bayard Rustin~
" Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers."
~Aristotle~
*Working Towards a Better World
Thank you for your kind visit. Have a wonderful and beautiful day! xo💜💜
Love is the Force of Life & the World Cannot Be Without It
May love overcome all the hate and finally join us together so we may work as a worldwide team. We should tear down all the barriers, race, religious, sexual orientation and all discrimination it is time to live together in peace!!! We should and can make it happen!
As of today, people in Bavaria who do not have gene therapy substances administered to them are largely excluded from social life by the so-called 2G rule;
and this, although there is no difference to the syringe recipients in terms of transmissibility of the Covid-19 disease.
Some speak of 'vaccination apartheid' and discrimination -
some compare these rules (the exclusion of a group of people) with events in the period around 1938.
In my opinion, they are right.
Upon great reflection, I wonder?
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
Albert Camus
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants--everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.
Franklin Roosevelt
Liberties aren't given, they are taken.
Aldous Huxley
Thank you for your kind visit. Have a wonderful and beautiful day! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
a wonderful, intelligent and caring woman who led a life of integrity, grace and kindness while being a strong advocate for equal justice and eliminating discrimination of all types.
All of whom embrace the international feeling with a gender equal world, a world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women's equality. Collectively we can all #InspireInclusion as quoted from IWD 2024
www.internationalwomensday.com
With heartfelt and genuine thanks for your kind visit. Have a wonderful and beautiful day, be well, keep your eyes open, appreciate the beauty surrounding you, enjoy creating, stay safe and laugh often! ❤️❤️❤️
In Ottawa there's a place dedicated to Canadian women who have contributed to our society. This woman is Viola Desmond who, in 1946 dared to sit in a whites only section of a theatre. She was arrested but at her trial she became a hero for standing up to discrimination. The laws were soon changed.
Just this year, in tribute to Viola, it was decided that her portrait would grace our $10 bill.
the little girl with red ribbon on hair watching cultural show from a distance..... her father is so poor that he can't take off from his business (selling handmade cone ice-cream ) when all people are enjoying the festival. but she wants to join the festival so he take her with him on the place of his business rather near the stage.
Captured from SUST' Sylhet in Pohela Boishak (Bangla New Year festival)
When I went to the NO Kings protest rally there was well over a hundred thousand people marching down Fifth Avenue which was not surprising considering New York County or better known as Manhattan Trump got less than 20% of the vote and did almost as poorly in the rest of the city with the exception of Staten Island. Another factor is that New York City has a very high percentage of college graduates and people who consider themselves non religious. Two groups Republicans do very poorly with. Trump's unpopularity in the city predates his current political involvement and tenure of office. First he was found guilty of racial discrimination on his properties, There was also when his Casinos went bankrupt and over 250 construction contractors were never paid or only were partly casing many of them to go under. But the most notorious case was that of The Central Park Five which was the case of five young black men who were charged in the brutal assault and rape of a young woman. Trump put full page ads in the local papers including the New York Times advocating for the immediate execution of them. The men then spent several years in prison but the real rapist confessed to the crime and was confirmed with DNA evidence. The five men were exonerated and state settled for a 41 million settlement for their wrongful imprisonment. But Trump even after they were released never apologized for his remarks.
BATTLES over religious symbols in Britain continued when a Christian woman took on British Airways over her cross necklace and a Muslim teaching assistant defended her stance on wearing the veil.
The debate has amplified in the week since British leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw appealed to Muslim women to remove their veils to improve face-to-face communication and prevent separate cultures from taking root in Britain.
Rifts over the veil deepened at the weekend, as opposition politicians accused Muslim leaders of encouraging "voluntary apartheid" by forming closed societies.
The Conservative Party's shadow home secretary, David Davis, said Britain risked social and religious divisions so profound that society's very foundations, such as the freedom of speech, would be "corroded".
Britain's Race Minister also waded in, saying a 24-year-old Muslim teacher who refused to either remove her veil while teaching young children or to work with men, breached sex discrimination rules.
In this latest incident, the teacher, Aishah Azmi, was suspended after complaints from parents that their children could not understand her, especially as many had English as a second language.
The school principal that suspended Mrs Azmi reasoned she did not wear a veil when she was interviewed for the job and face-to-face communication was essential for teaching English as a bilingual support worker.
Mrs Azmi defended her veil as a moral necessity and said to deny her the self-respect and dignity it afforded was discriminatory against Muslim women.
The Sunday Mirror quoted Race and Faith Minister Phil Woolas as saying: "She should be sacked. She has put herself in a position where she can't do her job. She is denying the right of children to a full education … she is taking away the right of men to work in schools."
His comments came as about 60 Muslims demonstrated against Mr Straw, calling him a "Christian fascist".
Mr Straw had said the veil was "a visible statement of separation and difference", not required by Islamic faith.
As a matter of routine, he would ask his Blackburn constituents to show their face while in meetings with him.
Meanwhile, Christian groups were defending the "right" of a Heathrow airport check-in worker to display a necklace with a silver cross the size of a five-cent coin.
British Airways does not permit a cross to be visible, but allows Muslims and Sikhs to wear turbans, hijabs and religious bangles because they "cannot be concealed".
Nadia Eweida, 55, said she had been forced to take unpaid leave over the cross, which was a "silent witness" of her faith in Jesus.
The dispute arose a day after she attended the airline's "diversity training" that taught tolerance towards religions.
Stories of people wanting to protect or protest against a particular expression of faith inundate the British media every day.
A married mother in Rotherham, who had a contraceptive method fail, was aghast that a Muslim-owned pharmacy was allowed to cite religious beliefs in denying her the morning-after pill.
And the Royal Mail wrote an apology to a Muslim woman wanting to post a parcel after staff in Penwortham, Lancashire, refused to serve her unless she removed her veil.
the age.com
We need to all fight for our children to grow up in a world where racism is not prevalent, where lives are not limited and where people are truly judged on their character and not the color of their skin. It boggles my mind sometimes how far from Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream we still are. We have a congress that wants to take away health care, some of these same congressman are saying they honor Martin Luther King Jr. today even though King said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
And we have a president who says the most racist things that one can possibly imagine any political leader ever saying. Where does that leave us in the world today? That leaves us, no matter what our race is, to not be silent and to be vocal in the streets. We must stand up for this next generation of beautiful children to have access to a quality public education, to quality health care, to highly skilled jobs, to in all accounts the pursuit of happiness, to an environment that has stabilized and to liberty.
Sometimes, it is really difficult for me, even though I am white, to not despair myself. I feel like our nation has taken steps backwards not forwards with Trump and all the beautiful children I help, regardless of race, I want them to have a life that entails all of these things. But, I also truly believe that if King were alive today, he would encourage people to not give up the fight. We have to remember, as Americans, our country is only worthwhile if we fight for the best it can be and can offer all of our immigrants and citizens both.
Dr. King also said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." We should all make an effort to be kinder, to listen to each other, to be compassionate and to reveal insight and light as a counter to arguments that support discrimination. We are at a time when we all have to fight for human rights. Protests were even less popular during Martin Luther King's time period and he gave his life fighting for justice. Let us be inspired by his bravery not just today but in all days going forwards.
Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies :-)
― Suzy Kassem
HPPT!!
j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, Raleigh, north carolina
Discrimination has come to have such negative connotations. When... really... it's a quality we couldn't live without. All things are not created equal. That includes us. And... really... it would be ridiculous to think that we... subjective creatures that we are... could feel the same about everyone and everything.
Discriminating simply means (or can simply mean) differentiating among different things. Is it bad to love apples and not pears? Is it wrong to prefer silk to polyester? Or chocolate to vanilla?
What about vertebrates over invertebrates? Or furry things over slippery ones? Or things with faces over things without faces? Or mammals or over insects?
I'll come clean. I discriminate against slugs, snails and caterpillars. Most other critters I can find redeeming qualities in. These guys? Ugh.
Although...
I've read that slugs are the only things that eat dog poop. And I guess that's a good thiing, considering the number of people in my neighbourhood who don't (grrrr) clean up after their dogs.
Um... go slugs go? And what about the snails? Surely they have some redeeming quality. Oh... I know. The shells.
But those are only good once the snails are dead. Meantime... sorry snail lovers... this photo totally makes me cringe.
Front page illustration for 7 Days, a children's newspaper.
It goes with an article about the violence against Jewish people:
there has been a recent growth of hate crimes in Holland, and especially Amsterdam apparently.
Jewish men are afraid to wear their Kippah since it seems to make them an easy target.
Very sad development and worrying given the fact that the Netherlands used to be very liberal.
Hence for example Amsterdam's nickname 'the Gay Capital".
Not any more though..
I was told to not make the boys on the left unrecognizable, to avoid stigmatization of yet another ethnic minority.
Still given the statistics that seems a little odd to me.
As the Moon and Sun, or Water and Oil cannot be Friends, now I know.............
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
This is a poem I adore... ,
I dedicate this poem to my grandmother who died in a faraway country, but by my side
It was one of her favorite poems!
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"Life, death, death, life; the words have led for ages
Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed
Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages
Are opened, liberating truths undreamed.
Life only is, or death is life disguised,
Life a short death until by Life we are surprised.
All Nature is taught in radiant ways to move,
All beings are in myself embraced.
O fiery boundless Heart of joy and love,
How art thou beating in a mortal’s breast !
It is Thy rapture flaming through my nerves
And all my cells and atoms thrill with Thee ;
My body thy vessel is and only serves
As a living wine-cup of Thy ecstasy.
I am a centre of Thy golden light
And I its vast and vague circumference,
Thou art my soul great, luminous and white
And Thine my mind and will and glowing sense.
Thy spirit’s infinite breath I feel in me;
My life is a throb of Thy eternity".
Sri Aurobindo
[Taken in Paris (France) - 28Jun08]
The 2008 parisian Gay Pride gathered between 250000 (police's number) and 700000 (organizers number) people.
The theme this year was against discrimination at school.
See all the photos of this demonstration, chronologically put, in this set : 28Jun08 - Lesbian & Gay Pride [Event]
See all the random portraits in this set : Portraits [Random]
See all the body art photos in this set : [Body Art]
Is this not a small world that we all live in? Much too small to waste room with hate, belief of superiority, or discrimination.
London, Ohio
There's no discrimination down around Trafalgar Square.
During our walkabout we came across a different sort of crossing light, this is one of them.
I'm guessing that at some point someone decided that having a generic stick figure walking was racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, etc, etc so the city decided they would spend the money to have these lights installed. Seems like a silly way to be spending the public funds in my opinion but then I'm an old traditionalist!
This was shot in (M)anual, I did give the light a little color boost because it looked pretty faded in the original. I think it might have something to do with it being LED and the frequency they operate at. May be something the camera had a hard time catching.
Yes, this is a real photograph taken with a real camera, not a Computer Rendered Artificial Picture!
Excerpt from the plaque:
Opposing Steel Arcs: The two opposing steel arc walls represent the obstacles to freedom, including the harsh realities of racism and discrimination, that early Black Canadians of diverse backgrounds contended with on their journey from slavery to freedom and in their efforts to build their lives and communities.
This is 2020 yet based on the recent events, it feels like it's the 1800s. As I have commented on some previous posts, there are many things that are wrong in our modern societies. What we saw happening in Minneapolis is not an isolated event. Throughout the years we've witnessed racial discrimination, we've seen people being mistreated based on the color of their skin. This issue is not political and as such racism should be condemned by everybody, no matter where they stand politically. I know that this is not a US thing only, however it feels like here it's happening more than anywhere else in the world. It feels like this society was built on "crooked" foundations. And maybe it was, as slavery played a key role, mostly on the Southern States, on how this country evolved through the years and became a world power. But this is not 1874, this is not a sugar plantation in Louisiana. We heard the words "I can't breath" in 2014 when Eric Garner was choked to death by a NYPD officer. 6 years later not much has changed. We heard the exact same words as George Floyd was suffocated by a Minneapolis PD officer. The names and the places don't matter, as history is repeating and innocent lives are lost. Sadly, in the name of these lives people are acting in a way that generates more hatred. Looting and setting Police Departments on fire is not the solution. It will only make things worse and inevitably, we will see more people die. When will this end?
It is so easy to say I love you or we love you. First of all we need to treat each other equal and we hope for the world of no discrimination.
It is my personal experience that I have seen people reacting so differently when you are NOT wearing a mask during this period of pandemic. In some other communities on the other hand I read on the news some people discriminate against people who are wearing masks and view the mask wearing people as sick persons.
There are so many reasons a person is wearing or not wearing a mask. And this should not be reason for you to treat them differently.
I may be framing the picture a little too tight. I want to remind that there are two persons in the scene. One wearing mask and another one does not.
Have a good Easter weekend!
Fuji X-T1
Fuji XF 35mm F2
altered book spread "start" to be sent out for Library collaboration.
if u haven't got one yet- hang in there its a comin'...around the mountain when it comes
This new tolerance sees the specks of intolerance in the eyes of others, but can’t see its own logs of intolerance, dogmatism, pride, absolutism, discrimination, authoritarianism, and lack of love. - Alevander Strauch
Respekt!
Kein Platz für Rassismus ist eine 2006 gegründete Initiative mit Sitz in Frankfurt am Main, die sich gegen Rassismus, Diskriminierung und Intoleranz richtet. Sie wirbt für ein respektvolles Verhalten gegenüber anderen, für Toleranz, Anerkennung und Wertschätzung.
Respect!
No place for racism is an initiative founded in 2006 and based in Frankfurt am Main that is directed against racism, discrimination and intolerance. It promotes respectful behavior towards others, tolerance, recognition and appreciation.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respekt!_Kein_Platz_f%C3%BCr_Rassismus
Muse: Kerli
“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.” - Joseph Campbell
[Many of us are feeling the weight of despair and fear to a crushing degree right now. We fear for our planet. We fear for our loved ones. We fear for strangers. We fear for ourselves. We are outraged. We are in shock. And many of us are seeking new paths to help out in the face of fear, discrimination, and outright bigotry.
It's difficult not to wake up and immediately start thumbing through articles covering the Latest. But this week I've been challenging myself to wait until I've gotten some food in my stomach and written down a daily goal or affirmation. I inwardly recite my mantra. I tell my pets I love and appreciate them. Or I tell that to my coffee. Then I catch up on the news. Changing my approach in this way has been helping to keep me somewhat grounded.
Take a moment today to find three things for which you are grateful. It can be as simple as "I arrived on time to work today and am grateful to myself for making that possible." It can be as complex as "I am grateful to my ancestors that made life for me on this precious planet possible today."
Take a moment to close your eyes, inhaling deeply, and exhaling while affirming what it is you are grateful for. It helps. I promise.]
Ladli — which in Indian languages (Hindi and Urdu) means ‘beloved daughter.’
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LADLI - The loved one! campaign by SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIC
Photo: Firoz Ahmad Firoz
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"Worst of all, violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence -- yet the reality is that, too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned." (UN SECRETARY-GENERAL in International Women’s Day 2007 Message.)
“Almost every country in the world still has laws that discriminate against women, and promises to remedy this have not been kept.” (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the eve of International Women's Day 2008)
According to one United Nations estimate, 113 to 200 million women are “demographically missing” from the world today. That is to say, there should be 113 to 200 million more women walking the earth, who aren’t. By that same estimate, 1.5 to 3 million women and girls lose their lives every year because of gender-based neglect or gender-based violence and Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In addition to torture, sexual violence and rape by occupation forces, a great number of women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse. In war and conflicts, girls and women have been denied their human right, including the right to health, education and employment. “Sexual violence in conflict zones is indeed a security concern. We affirm that sexual violence profoundly affects not only the health and safety of women, but the economic and social stability of their nations” –US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, 19 June 2008 (Read more about UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict www.stoprapenow.org/ ).
Millions of young women disappear in their native land every year. Many of them are found later being held against their will in other places and forced into prostitution. According to the UNICEF ( www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html ),Girls between 13 and 18 years of age constitute the largest group in the sex industry. It is estimated that around 500,000 girls below 18 are victims of trafficking each year. The victims of trafficking and female migrants are sometimes unfairly blamed for spreading HIV when the reality is that they are often the victims.
According to the UNAIDS around 17.3 million, women (almost half of the total number of HIV-positive) living with HIV ( www.unaids.org ). While HIV is often driven by poverty, it is also associated with inequality, gender-based abuses and economic transition. The relationship between abuses of women's rights and their vulnerability to AIDS is alarming. Violence and discrimination prevents women from freely accessing HIV/AIDS information, from negotiating condom use, and from resisting unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner, yet most of the governments have failed to take any meaningful steps to prevent and punish such abuse.
United Nations agencies estimated that every year 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing the procedure – which involves the partial or total removal of external female genital organs – that some 140 million women, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa, have already endured.
We can point a finger at poverty. But poverty alone does not result in these girls and women’s deaths and suffering; the blame also falls on the social system and attitudes of the societies.
India alone accounts for more than 50 million of the women who are “missing” due to female foeticide - the sex-selective abortion of girls, dowry death, gender-based neglect and all forms of violence against women.
Since the late 1970s when the technology for sex determination first came into being, sex selective abortion has unleashed a saga of horror in India. Experts are calling it "sanitized barbarism”. The 2001 Census conducted by Government of India, showed a sharp decline in the child sex ratio in 80% districts of India. In some parts of the country, the sex ratio of girls to boys has dropped to less than 800:1,000.
It's alarming that even liberal states like those in the northeast have taken to disposing of girls. Worryingly, the trend is far stronger in urban rather than rural areas, and among literate rather than illiterate women, exploding the myth that growing affluence and spread of basic education alone will result in the erosion of gender bias. The United Nations has expressed serious concern about the situation.
Over the years, laws have been made stricter and the punishment too is more stringent now. But since many people manage to evade punishment, others too feel inclined to take the risk. Just look at the way sex-determination tests go on despite a stiff ban on them. Only if the message goes out loud and clear that nobody who dares to snuff out the life of a female foetus would escape effective legal system would the practice end. It is only by a combination of monitoring, education, socio-cultural campaigns, and effective legal implementation that the deep-seated attitudes and practices against women and girls can be eroded.
The decline in the sex ratio and the millions of Missing Women are indicators of the feudal patriarchal resurgence. Violence against women has gone public – whether it is dowry murders, the practice of female genital mutilation, honour killings, sex selective abortions or death sentences awarded to young lovers from different communities by caste councils, rapes and killings in communal and caste violence, it is only women’s and human rights groups who are protesting – the public and institutional response to these trends is very minimal.
Millions of women suffer from discrimination in the world of work. This not only violates a most basic human right, but has wider social and economic consequences. Most of the governments turn a blind eye to illegal practices and enact and enforce discriminatory laws. Corporations and private individuals engage in abusive and sexist practices without fear of legal system.
More women are working now than ever before, but they are also more likely than men to get low-productivity, low-paid and vulnerable jobs, with no social protection, basic rights nor voice at work according to a new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) issued for International Women’s Day 2008. Are we even half way to meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals?
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Unite To End Violence Against Women!
Say No To Sex Selection and Female Foeticide!!
Say No To Female Genital Mutilation!!!
Say No To Dowry and Discrimination Against Women!!!!
Say Yes To Women’s Resistance !!!!!
Educate & Empowered Women for a Happy Future !!!!!!
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This is not my best protest photo but in a city where ICE is cracking down in force, I could not risk outing someone who could be put in a camp/deported just to put a more personal human element into a movement. There's a whole set of photos like that you can refer to if you really want. I'm not posting this because it's a good photo (it isn't) I'm posting this because it's a reminder that we all have a choice to say no to corruption and to say yes to human rights. We must do these both simultaneously and with every molecule in our body.
I wanted to talk a little bit about what is happening in America right now. If you did not already know, there have been even more for profit concentration camps set up for people who have come here fleeing persecution, seeking a better life. This is an abomination paid for by our tax dollars and many of our politicians are invested in these camps, making money to inevitably fund their next campaigns and the viciousness continues and profit over people continues to be the theme. We've lost our souls.
I don't know how to be more hopeful. The good people in this country, the 70% of us are being held hostage against our wills by a hostile treasonous fascist who literally doesn't even know they didn't have airports back in 1776, an idiot who couldn't pass preschool and yet, the fact that he is a serial rapist and a treasonous coward is even worse. He is an unforgivable murderer. If he truly represents America, all I have left instead of my patriotism is true horror for what this country has become.
These deaths are on our hands. Their blood is on our consciousness. It is a gift to receive an immigrant. And all these people who are pro death camps all happen to call themselves "pro life" It's laughable. They just merely want to control women's bodies.
Every day, I wake up a little more hopeless and helpless, I have to be honest. Over the last three years, I've been to protests downtown, in airports, I've called congresspeople in multiple states, donated money to progressives, signed too many petitions to count, done phone banking, and tried to be a genuinely kind person to all in my every day interactions.
Above all is the narrative stream in my mind, is the kindness enough? Is it? I don't know. I really don't know. Is kindness greater than greed, greater than all the blood money? Is it? Because people have been protesting since the 1960s for basic human rights, for an end to racial discrimination and for universal healthcare, for equal rights among the sexes and for the LGBTQ community, for an end to war and look where we are right now. It's hard to believe that anything any of us non billionaires do make a difference.
But I do know this and I believe this...they want us to be as complacent as possible, to get us numbed with constant breaking news, to gaslight us into believe that when Trump says he'd collude again that's totally fine and not surprising at all. They want us to stay at home, do nothing, turn on the tv, have a pint of whiskey to numb our pain-that sort of thing. That's what they are banking on. Whatever you do, live as a light in the darkness. If it makes no difference in the grand scheme, at least you tried.
But, I bet it will make a difference to someone.
**All photos are copyrighted.*